Jimmy Adams: Hampshire Confident Ahead Of CB40 Final

Despite another good season with the bat, Hampshire captain Jimmy Adams has not been one of the names regularly mentioned as a possible replacement for England captain Andrew Strauss at the top of England's batting line-up.

He has another opportunity to remind England selectors and fans of exactly what he can do when he leads Hampshire against Warwickshire in this week's Clydesdale Bank 40 final at Lord's.

"I have a little bit of experience, people talk about how special it is and they're right," Adams told us about his feelings about playing at the home of cricket. "The opportunity to have a final at Lord's is incredible," he added.

He has certainly played his part during a wonderful season for Hampshire. He scored 195 runs during his side's run to the Friends Life t20 title and has added a couple of half-centuries in the CB40. In first-class cricket, he scored 813 Championship runs at 47.82 and despite a valiant unbeaten century in the final game of the season, Hampshire have narrowly missed out on the chance for promotion back to the first division this season.

"Going into the last week of the season it's always nice to have something to still play for. It'd be nice if we were still pushing for Division Two promotion, but we've got a four day game against Derby to keep our minds on something else and then a quick trip down the M1 for the big day on Saturday."

The runs have continued to flow for Adams despite him taking on the captaincy full time and he admits that the role has been a challenging, but rewarding one.

"It's been a mixed year, I started a bit slow and the first half of the year was tough," he said. "I was trying to balance the new role of captaining and trying to work on my own performances with the bat.

"The four day cricket has come pretty good recently, I would have liked to have contributed a little bit more in the T20's and Pro40s in terms of bigger scores, but hopefully theres a big score still to come, fingers crossed.

"As a whole if we can get a good result this weekend then I'll look back on this season with a huge sense of pride."

Looking ahead to a repeat of the 2005 final - won by Hampshire - Adams remains confident that his side can do the business on the day.

"We've played pretty good cricket in this competition through out the year. We're fortunate to have Neil Mckenzie back but unfortunately were going to be missing Dimitri Mascarenhas and Danny Briggs through injury and international call-ups but we are confident we have a side that's capable of lifting the trophy come the end of the day."